After the Miracle
by bisexualcharliedavis
Summary: Charlie finds out that after the miracle, for better or for worse, life keeps going.


A/N: charlie/mattie rights, baeby. i have some much longer pieces in the works but i couldn't write them until I got this one out of my head. Enjoy. No major warnings, except for the tiniest mention of blood.

"I wish I smoked."

"What for?" Mattie asked, looking up from the blades of yellowing grass she was braiding together. Her fingers are skilled, fast and gentle. They'd have to be because one ounce of pressure too much would snap the plant and render the entire effort worthless.

"Then I'd have a good excuse to come out here." It was a cold, dry winter night. There hadn't been any rain in months, and it was only due to Jean's careful tending that the grass was alive at all. It clung to life, just like he'd been clinging to the hope that their little family's missing member would come home. Well, he wasn't Charlie's real family, but he was still one of them.

He had a lot of family he didn't know anything about. His mother was disowned when he was too young to remember much about his grandparents other than they had a big house and his grandmother wore a necklace with many red shiny stones on it that he used to pull on. Even their faces were nothing but blurs. He had an uncle on his father's side who died in Africa during the war, Uncle Ray. He'd been fun, he could remember that much. He drove a ute, and he would let Charlie and his mates ride in the tray. He was pretty sure that was illegal now, and if it wasn't then it should be. How dangerous was that? Once, when driving down the highway Charlie had seen two dogs jump out the back of a ute and he couldn't bare to turn around and see what happened to them.

"What's wrong with just coming out here because you want to come out here?" Mattie asked, breaking his train of thought. He turned his eyes off the rusty arms of the washing line to look at her. She was wearing a pink dress with a sort of striped print on it. There is a stain of something that could be blood on her left side but she doesn't seem to have noticed. It's not her blood, at least.

"Just seems like a strange thing to do."

"Then start smoking?"

"With my luck? I'll take one cigarette and then start coughing up both of my lungs."

"I don't think you can blame your bad luck for anything anymore." She remarked, and then patted the back step she was sitting on.

"Or maybe I just used up every ounce of good luck I have left so now only bad things will happen to me." He replied, and then sat next to her. She tilted her head onto his shoulder, and he watched her fingers braid the grass still, hypnotised by the back and forth of the middle strand. He'd learned to braid once when his youngest brother was born. He, and everyone that they knew thought that David was going to be a girl Surely, after three boys, Shirley was due for a girl. Of course, that didn't happen, and he'd learned to braid for pretty much nothing. He could probably count on one hand the amount of times he'd braided anything. His highschool girlfriend's hair once, maybe? He remembered playing with her hair sometimes, usually just wrapping it around once of his fingers a few times before letting it go.

He made great paints to avoid messing up Mattie's hair, he'd seen the contraptions she put it in to get it to look like that and they looked heavy and painful. Mattie did not have the same consideration for his hair. In fact, she seemed to enjoy messing it up at the most inconvenient of times. Not that he'd ever tell her not to. He kind of liked it. He'd never wear it like that; that would not be appropriate but to have something mess it up? Well, he's not immune to fun.

"Maybe it's the start of a lucky streak. You should buy a lottery ticket."

"Maybe your father will approve of me."

"If my father approved of you then I wouldn't like you so much."

"Don't make me pick between my girl and my potential millions. I might not pick you." She laughed, it's a bright, clear sound in the dark garden and it makes him happy that no matter how chaotic, how strange and how troubled life was, the sound of her laughing was still as beautiful as it always was.

They settled into a companionable silence again. Like in the middle of the night, when they were both awake, and she was just across the bed from him swimming in her fabric ocean. If he was feeling daring he might reach out for a touch of warm, soft skin. If she was feeling daring she might take a hand in hers and thread their fingers. He used to feel bad that he wasn't the cuddler her last boyfriend had been; but those tiny seconds, that was almost worth it.

It must be passed midnight, they should be in bed. But he's not tired. He was planning to go back to the hospital before the night was over and see everyone still there. He still wanted some kind of debrief with Blake and Lawson. But he's in no rush. They will still be there in the morning. Weird to think that, he'd thought that when they finally tracked down the Doctor, when they brought him home, Charlie would not want to leave his side.

But when he'd been there, the people, the noise, the light, it was too much. Lucien told him to go home to his girlfriend. He would have to tell Lucien at some point that his girlfriend was Mattie. He'd been gone for...Three years. Three years of their lives that he didn't have any comprehension of. Hard to think about, harder still to understand.

Turns out life keeps going after you get your miracle. The road ahead of them, toward recovery, towards mending damaged relationships, it suddenly seems very long. Maybe that was why he didn't want to be there, he wasn't ready to start moving forward just yet. Maybe Ray was right about him being a coward who leaves when things get hard because things were about to get very, very hard and he doesn't want to be there. He just wants to be right here, at this moment, with Mattie forever.

But, he can't leave. Not this time. For starters, it was his lead that brought Blake back so it was expected for him to be excited to have him back. And he was, he was excited to know his friend wasn't dead, that he was where he was meant to be and he wasn't suffering. But... He is very tired. Like three years of trying to balance work, family, his and Jean's investigation into Lucien Blake and a relationship were suddenly weighing on him all at once.

He tilted his head against Mattie and watched as she took hold of his wrist. She threaded the grass around his wrist and tied it off. It wouldn't last the night, but that didn't make it any less beautiful.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Not really sure. It's all bleeding into each other. How about you?"

"I thought that I'd want to be at the hospital. But, I feel like I shouldn't be."

"Why not? I'm sure the Doc would be pleased to see you."

"He was." She said, "But, it's been five years since I last saw him. Yesterday, I thought he was dead and I was resigning myself to sharing you with that casefile for the rest of our lives."

"I can't picture you resigning yourself to anything."

"Maybe it's just something about you that makes me willing to compromise." He scoffed but didn't tell her she was wrong. "Now he's alive, the hospital is a fifteen-minute drive away but it might as well be in Tasmania for all I can get there."

"Things will look brighter in the morning." He said, not sure if there was anything he could do or say right now to comfort her. "It's been a Hell of a day. I think we should try to get some sleep." She helped him to his feet, and the two of them made their way back to the Blake House. Sure, they could drive back to their place, but sleeping in the spare bedroom seemed like a better place to go.

Tomorrow, when the sun was up, they'd make a start on the road forward.


End file.
